A Man Rides Through (109 page)

Castellan Norge didn't waste time saluting. He dug his spurs into his mount and sped away at a dead gallop.

"A thin hope, my lord King," Prince Kragen commented tensely.

"I am aware of that," King Joyse allowed himself to snap, "my lord Prince." Then, however, he moderated his tone. "Suggestions are welcome."

Prince Kragen scowled over his shoulder at the beast. "If the Congery cannot save us, we cannot be saved."

King Joyse nodded grimly. "Then may the stars send Master Barsonage inspiration, or everything I have loved must perish."

His eyes continued flashing.

After a moment, Prince Kragen caught the King's mood and smiled himself.

Watching their father and the Alend Contender from the distance of the pennon, the ladies Elega and Myste stood like reflections of each other, holding their breath together when the monster roared or moved, exhaling in shared appreciation of what King Joyse and the Prince accomplished.

As the army fought down its panic, Elega murmured, "I did not believe that we would ever see him like this again."

"I hoped for it," replied Myste softly. "I could not bear to give it up. That is the difference between us. I cannot live without old hopes. You are willing to let them go in order to conceive new ones."

At the moment, Elega had no idea whether she considered this an accurate observation or not.

"Wouldn't catch me doing that," Darsint commented sourly. He stood a step or two behind Myste, apparently watching for threats in all directions. "Haven't got the guts. Fighting I can do. But stand like that so the men won't panic? Make myself a target?" He seemed to be talking primarily to himself; nevertheless Myste turned to hear him. "Maybe that's what went wrong on Pythas," he added. "Couldn't rally my men."

"It was a different situation," said Myste, "in a different place. You did everything any man could have done there."

Darsint looked at Myste strangely. He took no discernible comfort in her words. Elega had the impression that Myste had unwittingly aggravated whatever troubled him.

"That's what you people do, isn't it," he muttered like a distressed songbird.
"He
does it. Both of you. You do 'everything.'"

"We would if we could," answered Elega, more for her own benefit than to argue with him. "Unfortunately, we're women."

Down the valley, the monster surged forward; she thought both the King and Prince Kragen would be taken by those appalling fangs. But they rode out of reach in time, keeping themselves like a bulwark between the beast and their army, a defense which had nothing to do with physical force.

"And even if we could fight like men," Elega continued, "even if we were allowed, we couldn't do anything against that creature. If it is to be stopped, the Masters must do it."

Master Barsonage had already informed her, however, that he had no hope left. A short way below her on the hillside, he had set up the mirror which had translated Terisa and Geraden away, the glass full of ocean. Eventually, he would try to hinder the beast with a rush of water. But he didn't expect much success. And none of the other mirrors remaining to the Congery could do anything against a creature that size.

As for Terisa and Geraden—

Where they were concerned, Elega would have been glad to hope; but she didn't know what to hope
for.
Her lack of confidence in Geraden was lifelong, hard to change. And Terisa also was no fighter.

Darsint made an uncomfortable noise in his throat, as if she had offended him somehow. Or frightened him.

"It is not your burden," Myste whispered to him gently. "You have already done more than we could have asked—more than most of us would have believed possible. And your rifle is exhausted. Doubtless that is the reason Master Eremis decided to risk his monster."

This observation didn't comfort the champion much, either.

Elega was watching her father and Prince Kragen so hard, focusing on them so exclusively, that she almost didn't see what was about to happen to them.

A shout of warning jerked her attention back a step, widened her angle of vision. With a cry she didn't hear herself utter, she saw riders come up both sides of the monster into the valley, dozens of them, hundreds; riders with red fur and alien faces, with four arms and two scimitars, their blades raised for blood; mounted creatures like the ones which had once attacked Terisa and Geraden, riding now to sweep around in front of the slug-beast against King Joyse and the Prince.

"Father!" Myste wailed into the turmoil.

But she only had one man to lose, only her father. Elega was going to lose Prince Kragen as well, and then the High King's victory would be assured regardless of whether or not the army relapsed to panic. Norge had men moving back down the valley, back toward the Prince and King Joyse, but they were too slow, too late. For a moment, Elega's vision went dark around the edges. She had the distinct impression that she was going to faint.

Then Darsint's metalled hand caught her by the shoulder, turned her. She couldn't see his face; she was trying to pull away, trying to watch the foot of the valley. Yet he held her.

"Protect her." His voice sounded like a warble. "You can do it better than any of this lot. Understand? I love her. Can't let her be hurt."

Harder than he may have intended, he pushed Elega at Myste.

The sisters collided, hugged each other to keep themselves from falling.

Darsint set off at a run.

He headed for the stream and used it as a path: it was relatively clear; few of the men were milling in the cold water. Uneven ground and unsteady rocks made his armored feet slip and his strides lurch, so that he looked like a damaged machine hurrying toward a breakdown. Nevertheless the power still in his suit was enough to give him speed; he ran as fast a horse.

Not fast enough to save King Joyse and Prince Kragen, of course. At that pace, however, he might reach the foot of the valley in time to help avenge them.

Unfortunately, the Cadwals at the last catapult saw what he was doing. They threw scattershot at him as soon as he came within range.

Stones caught the sunlight, the bright metal; soundless amid the shouts and clamor, they hit hard. In spite of his armor, he went down on his face in the chuckling brook.

King Joyse and Prince Kragen wheeled when they heard the shout which had warned Elega. Kragen spat a curse at the sight of the red-furred creatures. Their hate was vivid, even through the monster's loud advance. And they were so many— He and King Joyse would never be able to get away. And the men Castellan Norge had already sent to rescue them had too far to come.

But the King smiled, and his eyes grew brighter. "As I said," he remarked in a voice only Prince Kragen could hear, "the High King grows desperate. He dares not fail. And men who dare not fail cannot succeed."

Prince Kragen considered this a foolish piece of philosophy—and gratuitous as well—but he had no time for it. He had no time to regret that he was about to die, or that he had failed his father, or that he would never hold Elega in his arms again. His hands snatched out his sword as he kicked his charger into a gallop, heading not toward the impossible safety of the army, too distant to do him any good, but rather straight at the nearest creatures, the front of the attack.

For the space of two or three heartbeats, he had a chance to be surprised and a bit relieved by the fact that King Joyse was right beside him, longsword ready, eyes bright for battle. Then the Alend Contender and the King of Mordant crashed alone into a vicious wall of scimitars and fought, trying to take as many of their enemies as possible with them when they died.

Once again, Elega was concentrating too exclusively on her father and Prince Kragen to see Darsint struggle back to his feet. She was holding Myste tightly: she only knew that something new had happened by the way Myste's body reacted.

Lumbering like a wreck, Darsint continued down the stream.

He couldn't run now. Myste had helped heal the wounds on his body, but nothing in this world could have helped him repair the holes which the Pythians had burned in his armor, and those holes made him vulnerable. He was hurt again now, listing to the side, stumbling occasionally; the power inside his suit may have been damaged.

He kept going anyway.

Prince Kragen and King Joyse kept going as well.

In fact, they kept going so well that the Prince felt a rush of joy at the way their swords rose and fell, the way their blows struck; the surge of their horses through the attack. The red-furred creatures had eyes in the wrong places, with whiskers sprouting all around them; they had too many arms, too many scimitars. And their hate was palpable in the fray, a consuming lust. Nevertheless they were flesh-and-blood: they could be killed. And they weren't especially skillful with their blades; they relied more on fury than on expertise.

The Prince and King Joyse cut into the heart of the attack and kept going, kept fighting shoulder to shoulder, as if between them they had discovered something indomitable.

It was amazing, really, how many cuts they ducked or parried or slipped aside; how far into the furred bodies they delivered their swords; how their crazy charge made the mounts of the creatures falter and shy. And it was amazing, too, how well the King fought. Prince Kragen himself was much younger—presumably much stronger. Yet King Joyse matched the Alend Contender blow for blow, swung and thrust his longsword as if the weight of steel transformed him, restored him to his prime. Now his beard was splashed with blood; cuts laced his mail; grue stained his arms. And yet he kept all harm away from his companion on that side.

For a few precious moments, they succeeded against unbeatable odds.

And while they succeeded, Prince Kragen found that King Joyse made sense to him at last. If everything else was lost, still no one would ever be able to change the fact that the King of Mordant and the Alend Contender had died side by side instead of at each other's throats.

Their success had to end. Two men simply couldn't survive against so much mounted and murderous savagery. And yet they did survive. The momentum of the battle changed suddenly, and Prince Kragen felt another singing rush of joy at the realization that he and King Joyse were no longer alone.

The Termigan had appeared in the midst of the fray.

He had all his men with him.

The look on his face was as keen as a cleaver; he had the hands of a butcher. The way he slaughtered his enemies justified every story the Prince had ever heard of him. And his men were beyond panic. They had seen Sternwall eaten alive by Imagery, and nothing could frighten them. During the first attack of the slug-beast, they had waited with their grim lord down near the foot of the valley, readied themselves to strike. They may have intended to strike at the monster itself. The red-furred creatures were a more possible enemy, however, and the last force of Termigan had hurled itself into the fighting without hesitation.

The lord and his men kept Prince Kragen and King Joyse alive until Norge's reinforcements arrived.

There were nearly a thousand of the creatures. Castellan Norge had sent less than half that many men to the rescue. The thought that King Joyse and Prince Kragen were already lost had filled the valley with alarm again, paralyzing a large portion of the army. And the men who sprang to Norge's call had to contend with horses that were wild with fear, terrified by the slug-beast and the alien creatures. In one sense, the Castellan was lucky to send as much help as he did to his King. In another, he was unlucky that he couldn't muster enough strength to turn the battle.

Nevertheless he achieved a goal which had never crossed his mind: he thinned out the combat directly in front of the monster; thinned it sufficiently to let Darsint through.

In the middle of the fray, Darsint shambled, hardly able to force one foot ahead of the next. He must have been in better condition than he looked, however. Every creature which attacked him, he shot with one of his handguns, aiming and firing almost negligently, as if he could do this kind of fighting in his sleep. When he missed, scimitars rang off his armor without hindering him; he appeared unconscious that he was struck. He wasn't interested in mere blades and horses.